Sir Robin Day

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 1990

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is Sir Robin Day. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about going with his father to hear Churchill speak at a political rally when he was a boy, recalling his days at post-war Oxford, the early days at ITN and his long association with politicians in front of the microphone.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: The Drinking Song by Giuseppe Verdi Book: The Oxford Book of English Verse Luxury: Magnums of champagne

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1990, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a television interviewer.
0:32.6	Thirty years ago he tried and failed to become a member of parliament.
0:36.5	Since then he's reversed the old adage and proved to the nation's delight that if you can't
0:41.7	join them you can occasionally beat them.
0:44.9	Many a politician has squirmed before his penetrating questioning, where his entertaining style
0:49.9	has earned him popularity and a knighthood too. Now in his mid-60s he has retired from his regular
0:56.5	programme but still makes enough appearances to remind us that he is without doubt the
1:01.1	elder statesman of political television. He is Sir Robin Day.
1:05.2	Robin I find it very difficult to imagine you on a Desert Island. How are you going to cope with life in the roar?
1:10.1	Well I don't know why you find it difficult to imagine me coping with life on the Desert Island,
1:14.6	nor do I find it difficult to imagine myself in the raw state.
1:18.4	By that, do you mean in the nude?
1:20.3	Whatever you care to wear?
1:21.3	Well, I shall wear whatever I have to wear, but I can't be raw all the time because there's bound to be some vegetation I can find to make myself an appropriate garment.
1:31.6	No, I shall cope. It's always been my motto in life to cope with
1:35.7	whatever difficulties are in front of me and I shall make the best of a good or a bad job.
1:41.0	What would you be most pleased to have escaped from? Oh the dirt and the
1:45.0	noise and the television. The television too? Yes there wouldn't be a
1:49.1	television set on the island because the television is so awful.
1:53.0	Even with you honoured?
	...

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